1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to generating clock signals for electronic devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Clock synthesizers generate clock signals utilized by a wide variety of electronic products. A typical synthesizer utilizes a phase-locked loop (PLL) supplied with a reference signal from a source such as a crystal oscillator. The output frequency of the signal supplied by the synthesizer can be determined by a divider value of the feedback divider in the PLL. Thus, a reference frequency supplied to the PLL is “multiplied” based on the divider value to generate the synthesized clock frequency.
Several types of divider circuits have been utilized in PLLs. One kind of divider is the integer-N divider in which the input signal is divided by an integer number. For example, FIG. 1A illustrates the timing diagram of several integer divides including a divide by two, a divide by three and a divide by four. The signal being divided is CLKin. Note that no jitter is introduced in the frequency division process, other than noise from circuit non-idealities. FIG. 1B illustrates the simple integer divide by 2 provided by a D flip-flop (DFF) 101.
Another type of PLL architecture uses a fractional-N divider. FIGS. 2 and 3 illustrate fractional-N frequency division. Fractional-N frequency division changes the integer divide value to match the desired ratio. Thus, a stream of integers is supplied that approximate the desired ratio. For example, FIG. 2 illustrates a timing diagram of a divide by 2.25. The input clock (CLKin) is shown as waveform 201 having a period of one unit interval (UI). The output of the fractional-N divider is shown in waveform 203. As shown in waveform 203, the divide by 2.25 is achieved by a sequence of divide by 2 for three periods and a divide by 3 for one period, assuming a first order delta sigma modulator is used to control the fractional-N divider. Waveform 205 illustrates the ideal waveform for a divide by 2.25. The quantization noise of the modulator, at the output of the fractional-N divider is shown as the difference at 207, 209, and 211, between the actual output of the fractional-N divider shown in waveform 203 and the ideal output for a divide by 2.25 shown in waveform 205.
FIG. 3 illustrates a PLL 300 with a fractional-N feedback divider 303. Delta-sigma modulator 301 supplies a divide sequence to the fractional-N feedback divider 303. The fractional-N divider 303 receives a divide value sequence corresponding to a desired divider value. The fractional-N divider 303 supplies the divided signal to phase detector 305 with noise associated with the nature of the fractional-N divider. In fractional-N synthesis, the fractional-N noise may be filtered out by the PLL loop. In addition, phase error correction may be utilized to address the jitter introduced by the divider by introducing an offset into the PLL corresponding to the jitter generated by the fractional-N divider.
However, the clock synthesizers described above may have limited frequency coverage (integer dividers) and/or require a complex loop filter and complex VCO control that increase the cost in design effort and chip area, resulting in more expensive products that may be too expensive in cost or real estate for significant portions of the clock synthesizer market.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a low-cost, flexible, clock synthesizer solution.